go fly
market vibes
March 3…)
"You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough" Mae West
in the news
CENTCOM explicitly stated yesterday “two days ago, the Iranian regime had 11 ships in the Gulf of Oman. Today, they have zero,” meaning sunk or damaged beyond repair. The US navy’s strategy is “annihilate” Iran’s naval forces.
Iran’s navy is notably heavy on small fast-attack craft, missiles, drones, and submarines rather than large blue-water ships. As of this morning and CENTCOM report yesterday, the Iranian surface fleet in the immediate operational area of the Strait has been effectively neutralized. However, Iran retains shore-based anti-ship missiles, mines, small boat swarms, and submarines which they’ve used for limited attacks on commercial shipping. But no intact major surface warships remain to project power or enforce a blockade directly ( sources + sources .
in the markets
Oil is rising to new highs on rising OI and volume. At this point the oil market is either in a vertical liquidity void or about to enter one and all other markets around it are going to be reactive, especially colatteral. It’s not a time to think about what they should be doing. It is a time to accept and anticipate that reality and react with it.
Rubio said in his press conference yesterday the administration has a program to mitigate higher oil prices; Wright and Bessent will be rolling it out today. The US Navy is making progress in the Strait but the Iranian fleet of subs is still in tact. At this point that could mean a significant regional divergence between Brent, WTI, and other local crude prices like WCS.
Gasoline prices are relatively politically tame.
silver
After a brief probe of the mid 90s and a significant “sell void” silver prices are returning to an area of range development established in February. I think a new range circa $80 may dominate trading for some time.
